


Out at Sea (cruisin' along)

by JustAMessAtThisPoint



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Cruise AU, F/F, but lena luthor needs a holiday, kara is a smoothie girl, lena hates cruises, other superfriends may appear at some point
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 04:22:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29993820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAMessAtThisPoint/pseuds/JustAMessAtThisPoint
Summary: When Lena is in desperate need of a holiday she somehow ends up on a cruise ship. What could possibly go wrong?
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41





	Out at Sea (cruisin' along)

The concept of a perfectly sunny day is probably Lena’s biggest nightmare right now. So when she trudges out to the main deck and a perfectly blue sky grins down at her. A beautiful blue ocean waving at her from all sides. She adds nature itself to her shit list.

She slides her sunglasses on and continues dragging her feet, half-heartedly dodging the Hawaiian shirt clad families until she reaches an empty lounge chair that is blessedly in part shade. 

She reclines, quickly claiming her space before someone within the vultures around her can swoop in and steal it from under her. She regrets her haste almost immediately. The chair is stiff and smells distinctly of chlorine, the pillows an odd form of moist. Lena eyes the man-made monstrosity at the centre of the decking with distaste, watching as a child fishes a bandaid from the bottom of it. Holding it like a trophy above his head, grinning at his mother who visibly pales. Lena makes note to never step within a two metre radius of any of the pools onboard.

Never at any point in her life has Lena Luthor ever wanted to partake in or be associated in any way with a cruise. Ocean traversing tourist traps having never really been her style. So, how exactly she ended up being coerced into boarding this floating carrier of discount seafood and infectious diseases, she couldn't really tell you.

There is one and only one upside to this vacation situation that she’s found herself in, one that she plans to take full advantage of this morning before her evening plans of drowning herself in bottomless margaritas. And that is that for the first time since college Lena is actually able to sit down and read something. The dog-eared scientific journal in her lap intended to be her first attempt at doing so. 

Intended being the key word here, as a tray of drinks headed her way have a very different plan for her. 

A singular yell of, “heads!” Is her only form of warning before a wave of various smoothies and juices are sloshing over her. The thankfully plastic glasses clattering to the floor around her. The sound that escapes her throat is not a sound that Lena initially registers as her own voice. A shrill, shrieking as the majority of her chest and lap is covered in cold, sticky, fruity liquid. A gasp erupts from the people around her, but no one approaches to help her. 

No one except a man blubbering to her in such a high pitched ramble, that it takes her a moment to register exactly what he's trying to say to her.

“Oh-oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. There was a towel on the ground and I didn’t see the towel and- Shit, I’m just so, so sorry.” The man says, flailing his arms about him as if they will do anything to emphasise his point, his bright green shirt emblazoned with the logo for the smoothie hut. He gets to his feet, leaning forwards as if to touch her, Lena recoils. “And your book, dude I am so sorry. I-I’ll pay for a replacement I swear. Ah jeez, Cat is going to kill me.” 

Lena doesn’t know who ‘Cat’ is but she does agree with her homicidal tendencies as she realises that her beautiful journal has been rendered unreadable by a pink menace, the ink smeared and bleeding. Lena’s not sure if the stinging in her eyes means she’s going to cry or if it’s the juice dripping from her hair. 

There’s a blur to her vision, pink seeping into everything around her. Wiping at her belongings with mounting dread for salvaging them.

Though unprompted, the failing man moves to follow her as she stands. Straightening and presenting her with the bandana from his uniform with shaking hands. It does very little to help, soaking through quickly in the slush. Lena thanks him for the gesture regardless. The crowd that has gathered to stare is mounting a little too much, the outdoor space feeling unnaturally confined. She straightens herself under the scrutiny, bringing her shoulders back and her head up, beginning her trek back to her quarters with the dignity a Luthor is taught to lead with. Slopping the bandana back into the hands of the smoothie boy and marching herself forward, journal to her chest.

Lena doesn’t expect him to, but the man follows her, and though Lena doesn’t want him to, he begins talking again. “I’m Winn, by the way.” He,  _ Winn _ , trundles after her, arms full of the empty cups and tray. The two of them leave a trail of smoothie slush behind them, shoes squelching. “I’m really sorry about your book.. Was it a science thing? Are you in study or something?” even the tone of his voice is beginning to royally piss her off. Clearly this boy has never bothered learning how to read body language. 

“I’ve read it before, I wanted to refresh my knowledge on the concepts of quantum entanglement for an upcoming project.” Her response is snappy looking away from the path she’s on, the ship's hallways a frustrating maze. She definitely has juice in her eyes. 

“Oh you’re a scientist? That’s cool. I’m more into tech myself, my dad was more of a robotics man but I was always more into the code than the mechanics.. Wow, you walk fast.” The hallway that they’re heading down stops branching off into a left and a right section, Lena pauses at the intersection feeling turned around. Winn, distracted by his own ramblings, walks directly into her back, dropping the cups with a clash. Strike two. 

Despite herself, she turns towards the chaos rather than her room, kneeling to help Winn clean his new mess. He’s got specks of juice in his hair, shirt front soaked, and as they’re stacking the cups back into a manageable pile, Lena has the alarming realisation that poor juice boy might actually be crying. 

“Tech is another love of mine, I actually work for a pretty big tech company myself.” Lena very gently puts the stacked cups into Winn’s hands, giving him a small smile that she hopes doesn’t come across as overly forced. Crouched down next to him she can tell that he isn’t crying but his eyes are definitely shinier than they should be, there’s a tremble to his chin. She has the distinct feeling like she’s consoling a child. “Do you need help getting these back to the smoothie hut?” 

“No- no, I got it. I should probably get back to work before they send out a search party..” He laughs half-heartedly and brushes his hair out of his face, flattening his hair to his head, “I’m sorry about what happened, hey- uh, if you ever feel like a smoothie I’ll make sure it’s on the house.” They stand up together and Winn gives her a shaky smile over the cups, retreating down the hallway. Lena gives a brief thought to the poor cleaning staff that will have to deal with the carpet in their wake. 

Her room is no real comfort, all bright colours, shitty decor, and bare minimum furniture. Lena stands at the centre of it all smelling like mangoes and turning yogurt. 

Her book makes her feel even worse, there’s no saving it, the cover crumbling away in her hands. Throwing it away stings more than expected. 

There’s a painting of a cartoon fish above the bin, the colouring childlike and clumsy, an apt addition to this place she supposes. She throws a disdainful look to the bed sheets covered in a similar styled pattern of a sailboat, the bright blues of it clashing with the eye-watering yellow of the pillows. 

The view this room was advertised to have comes in the form of a kitschy porthole window above the double bed, it’s small and at such a height that Lena can only really see out of part of it unless she stands on top of the bed. 

The bathroom might have been popular in the 80s, but Lena finds it underwhelming and slippery as she stands upright in the bath under the shower head and peels her clothing off slowly under the cold running water. The pressure is shitty too, but at least it’s not juice. 

Jack texts her whilst she’s drying her hair. Ever the dependable companion he’d left her alone for the morning in lieu of getting a massage. You would think that his insistence at getting her into this floating prison in the first place would also motivate him to include her in his activities, but after a week that does not seem to be the case. Lena supposes it’s not entirely his fault that she’s here. Some of the blame should definitely go towards her two other friends, her assistant Jess and her CFO Sam. The two women had dragged her kicking and screaming from her ivory tower. 

“Lena you’ve officially accrued so much holiday time that the company now has to legally ask you to take time off. And don’t even think about trying to sneak in, security is going to bar you from the building and the labs.” Sam had said whilst handing her her car keys and passport, “You’ll be taking six weeks off starting now. We’ll hold down the fort while you’re gone.”

Jack had made the suggestion two days later, over drinks with her three traitorous friends. She doesn’t exactly recall saying yes to anything but in her defence someone else had been shouting her drinks that night. So here she finds herself, trapped for the next five weeks. No escape unless she wants to go for a very long swim.

They meet in the dining room, Jack being easy to spot on account of him wearing possibly the most garish Hawaiian shirt Lena has ever laid eyes on. He's ordered them drinks before she's even had the chance to sit down, curly straws swirling out from the nautically themed cocktails. Lena doesn't take the time to learn their name but accepts the alcohol, drinking from the looped straw reluctantly. 

The stage to their left lays dormant, a singular keyboard framed with tinsel centre of an unlit stage. Too early in the afternoon for a performer.

Lena shifts her drink to cover the stain on the table cloth in a bid for her to stop noticing it. Jack doesn't look at her, instead his gaze is fixed solidly over her shoulder. The look adorning his face giving her the distinct impression that her friend may have had an ulterior motive for meeting her here.

“Now, whilst the passengers may not be much to look at, the staff in this place must be on some sort of special program for part-time modelling,” Jack maintains his leering over her shoulder, and Lena follows his gaze all the way to the bar. The bartender though quite handsome seems very busy in his task of cleaning glasses and ignoring them. She turns back to her friend who's leaned back into his chair curly straw to his lips. All half-lidded eyes and relaxed shoulders, Lena takes a moment to wonder just how many drinks he had partaken in before her arrival. “Now that is man I would very much like to know.” He purrs and Lena retches, crossing her legs, sliding back further into her chair and away from her friend. “You know Lena, the whole point of coming onto a cruise is to engage in the activities.” 

“I’m pretty sure bedding the staff isn’t a feature on the brochure.” She picks up her drink and gestures with it for emphasis, curly straw swirling. Jack seems to genuinely contemplate this for a moment. 

“We could give the mini golf a try?” 

“Jack, I love you darling, I really do. But why the fuck would we do that?” 

“This is supposed to be a fun trip. You know fun? Reading is all well and good, but for you especially there is a fine line between reading and research. And don’t think for a second that burying yourself in research isn’t technically work, because it is.” He points at her with his drink, now empty. Lena realises hers has also been drained. 

The menus are laminated and covered in clipart style food, Lena orders a salad as her lunch not trusting any of the seafood options, Jack orders another round of the sweet cocktails and a cheeseboard. The lettuce is limp and the cocktails are slowly revealing themselves to be too sweet. But by three drinks in, she seems to care a lot less. The cheeseboard becomes far more of a shared meal than she would ever admit but Jack simply smiles and places the dish further towards the centre of the table. 

“You know what you need?” He points and slumps forward to lean on the table, his newest drink sloshing dangerously with the movement. 

“Are you going to tell me or do I get to guess?” She picks apart bread with her hands, raising an eyebrow towards her friend.

“You need a girl to obsess over.”

“Obsess over?” The response is a little higher pitched than she intends, she narrowly avoids choking on the bread. She washes it down with a large swig from her drink.

“You need a love interest, a crush, a good-looking distraction.”

“A good source of gossip for you.” 

“Exactly.” He takes another long drink from his curly straw, a cat-like grin plastered onto his face, beard stained lightly from lunch, Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned to reveal his sternum. He swings onto the back legs of his chair and Lena briefly fantasises about him falling on his big dumb face. She drinks to hide her laugh.

It’s much later in the evening when she returns to her room, stumbling in, taking her shoes off and collapsing onto the bed. The digital clock on her bedside table flashes 6:30pm. She sleeps with the lights still on and clothing untouched.

Waking up is as disorientating as it is nauseating, the tiny kitchenette in the corner of her room offering her no solace. Only a couple packets of cheap instant coffee, and an electric kettle that Lena thinks somehow might be older than her. She needs real coffee, and she needs it right now. 

Upon inspection it appears that the ‘fanciest cruise to hit open water’ doesn’t have a designated cafe, and further searching reveals that there’s not a coffee cart either. The lights are far too bright and the people are far too loud. Lena rubs at her eyes under her sunglasses frames and thinks about how there should be some sort of rule about letting children run around public areas before 11am. 

Her sunglasses are the darkest tint they could possibly be but it’s still not enough to block out the neon colours of the rainbow eyesore in front of her. The smoothie hut, ‘Smooth(ie) sailing’ stands before her and in any other circumstance she wouldn’t touch that place with a ten foot pole, but behind the young woman at the register sits her shining silver saviour, a genuine commercial coffee machine. And not a Winn in sight. 

The whole place smells of a headache-inducing concoction of strawberry flavouring and pineapple, the girl behind the counter smiling a little too much for Lena’s hangover’s liking, her name tag reads ’Nia’ with a strawberry sticker wearing a top hat next to it. There’s a few people milling around her but thankfully there’s no line. 

“What can I getcha today?” 

“One large black coffee please.” Nia writes the order on a coffee lid and passes it to a blonde woman cleaning one of the blenders behind her. 

“Is there anything else we can get you today?” 

Lena eyes the bagels in the glass cabinet to her left but decides against it. It would probably be smarter to avoid solids for a little while longer. Coffee first. 

Bagel-less and head pounding, she watches the blonde woman as she makes her order. All broad shoulders and lean hips swaying lightly to the shop’s bubblegum nineties soundtrack. There’s a green bandana tied around her neck, the back of her shirt telling Lena to ‘squeeze the day!’ But none of these details matter. Because they could never be as fascinating to her as when the woman finally turns around. And Lena is confronted with possibly the most beautiful person she has ever seen.

“One black coffee, ready to go!” The woman smiles at her, eyes glinting, eyebrows raising over simple black frames. Strong looking hands place the coffee delicately onto the take away counter, the cup decorated with tiny dancing pineapples. “I hope you find it pear-fect.” She winks and finger guns, tongue between her teeth, pushing it further across the counter towards Lena. Ponytail whipping behind her as she turns once more to the blenders. 

Lena finds herself frozen in place and staring at the back of the woman’s head for several moments, later she’ll blame the hangover on the delay her brain has in giving orders to the rest of her body.

“Miss? Your coffee is ready.” Nia gets her attention from the register, looking at her with eyebrows furrowed, pen poised over a half written smoothie order.

She swipes the cup and retreats before she makes any more of a fool of herself. 

The coffee ends up being subpar but that doesn’t stop her from holding it close with both hands wrapped around it. Hunched and feeling very sorry for herself in a communal seating area with as little natural sunlight as possible. She allows herself a brief moment of daydreaming, all blonde locks, blue eyes, and strong hands. Dreaming of being whisked away off this ship and away from all the people in her life that seem to think she couldn’t possibly make her own decisions regarding how she spends her own time off. 

That’s how Jack finds her, curled up and daydreaming in a public space. He saunters up and slides in next to her like the previous nights activities have had no effect on him whatsoever. Bastard. 

They sit and people watch for a while, Lena not wanting to move until her coffee is finished. There’s a family to their left that seems to consist of four children and an elderly grandfather, the kids bouncing and running around the poor man who’s definitely struggling to keep up. She laughs a little too loudly at the running inner monologue Jack gives to him as they look on, elderly voice and all. To their right is what Lena assumes to be a young couple seeming to be mid argument, the woman has her chest puffed up finger waving in the young man's face. They’re not quite close enough to hear the words being said, but Jack seems to relish in giving them his own version of dialogue.

Lena lets him talk, head cloudy and coffee getting colder by the second. The dancing pineapples on the cup seem to mock her little as she drains the rest of her drink wincing at the dregs of it. It really is awful coffee. Lena will probably be needing another in the near future. 

In her periphery she sees a flash of blonde and turns to watch the woman from the smoothie hut handing out drinks across the room. Bright smile fixed to her face she carries her tray of glasses with practiced grace. Out in the open Lena can see she’s tall too, taller than her at least, but she supposes that isn’t a particularly difficult feat. The shorts she’s wearing give her a fantastic view of tan skin and long legs, the sight makes her already foggy brain short circuit. She desperately wants to know her name, there’s a yearning somewhere in the deepest parts of her. 

Jack clears his throat, giving her an odd look from beside her. “I haven’t seen you look at someone like that in a while.” He observes wiggling his eyebrows at her and turns his gaze towards the woman, “I mean she’s not exactly my type but I can definitely see the appeal.” 

Lena hums but says nothing, seeing no point in giving him anything more to use as cannon fodder. When she turns to glance again the woman is still there, shuffling her feet as if she’d been lingering there for quite a moment. She smiles as they lock eyes, nodding in her direction and walking backwards away, eyes crinkling beneath glasses. Raising a hand in a little wave before ducking away.

Despite herself, and despite the fact that she’s long out of sight. Lena raises her hand to wave back. 

The clear acknowledgement of her existence does wonders for Lena's ego. That someone so wonderfully attractive would be giving her the time of day flutters somewhere low in her stomach. That is until she remembers the states she's in, wildly hungover and looking not dissimilar to a woman who's been dragged half backwards through a bush is not the general aesthetic that she likes to make a first impression with. she longs to put on her armour, her designer dresses and her towering heels, to saunter herself into that stupid little cruise ship juice joint and show herself off. Really sweep that girl off her feet.

"On a scale from one to 'I'm already planning our wedding,' how gay are you right now?" Jack questions voice low and conspiratorial, wiggling in closer and grinning over her shoulder. Lena groans, hiding her face in her hands.

"I'm so fucked."

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know what this is.. uni has started up again so I'm going to attempt weekly updates like usual, but I can't promise anything. 
> 
> Come yell at me over on tumblr: justamessatthispoint


End file.
